Lessons Learned
by TreeFrogSoup
Summary: Portals open up between the Wormverse and DCAU. How do the heroes react to the different worlds?
1. 1 - Three ways of Entry

Penguin watched his men move the crates of guns from truck to truck in the back alley of the poorly lit Gotham dockyard. Each team worked in pairs quickly and efficiently as they quickly took the wooden crates off of the truck, checked the cargo and moved it to the second less conspicious one parked next to it.

He walked under a lamp post as the last crates were put in.

"Okay, that's enough," he grinned through his sharp teeth. The Gang leader turned to he two men tied up and on their knees.

He raised his umbrella and fired a shot into each of them before turning back.

"Get going before Batman shows his ugly fa-"

"Wow, does your umbrella do anything else?"

Everyone turned to look at the silhouette of the awestruck girl in curly pigtails and dress at the end of the street. She slowly walked up the path towards the gangsters as they all drew their weapons and faced her.

"Wow, you look like a Penguin! That's awesome. Do those flippers work?"

Penguin pointed his umbrella at the girl and she stopped a step away from the light of another lamp post. The blue Hem of her skirt was the only thing lit up.

"Who the fuck are you?" snarled Cobblepot.

The girl stuck a bloody hand out and wagged her finger. "Hey! No swearing!"

One of the men took a small step backwards away from the bloody girl. She stepped into the light and her full outfit was shown. She was dressed normally, but her blue dress was covered in blood and had a belt of surgical equipment tied around it. Her face was similarly covered in red, fresh blood, some of it still dripping from her chin.

Cobblepot couldn't help but roll his eyes at the sight. "Oh, great."

It didn't stop the robotic spiders from jumping down on his men from the roofs of both trucks.

Superman walked into the conference room. Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Flash were seated.

"You called?" the Kryptonian asked.

"Yes," Batman replied. "Several of my sensors have caught signals across the US, primarily in Gotham, Metropolis and Keystone City."

Flash cut in. "And why would you- Nevermind."

Batman glanced at Wally for a moment.

"The real issue is that whatever caused the anomalous readings are still there. I suspect they may be portals to an alternate universe, not unlike the portal to the Justice Lords."

Superman got up. "I'm going there right now," he said.

"Wait, I'm not finished."

"Something came through?"

"Several somethings," Batman replied.

He pressed a button on the table and showed a projection of a young boy in monochome walking down a street on the wall. He walked down the street, occasionally stuttering and twitching. He raised a hand on a boy bouncing a basket ball and the boy also began to stutter, but this time at a constant rate every three seconds.

"That child is trapped in a loop of infinitely recurring time," Batman explained.

He pressed the button again and the screen cut to a second video. A mannequin like robot stumbles out of a portal in Gotham. It immediately takes off down the street and into an alley with frightening speed.

"We need to find and apprehend whoever has entered our dimension."

"I don't think you'll want anyone in Gotham, am I right?" asked Superman.

Batman looked at Superman. "I am allowing a group of heroes to help me with the Gotham portal. Thankfully it isn't situated too far into the city, or close to Blackgate or Arkham."


	2. 2 - Mistakes were Made

The Metropolis portal was surrounded by The Atom, Vigilante and Red Tornado.

"No Doctor Fate?" Superman asked as he landed there with Green Lantern.

Atom shook his head. "He's at the Keystone city portal, Superman. So far it seems like whatever caused this isn't magical at all. None of our mages or psychics can get a reading."

Just as Superman turned to speak he was tackled by a man who was obviously covered in chitin.

The caped crusader hit him with a solid blow to the ground and moved back. His scales rebuilt themselves to be obviously sturdier.

"Haha," the intruder laughed. "That was a great hit."

A barefoot girl in a red dress with ciggarette burns across both her cheeks stepped out of the portal afterwords. "Crawler, you shouldn't be so gung ho," she chided. "You could have ruined the fun before it starts."

 _Crawler,_ noted Superman. _I'm guessing it's an invasion of supervillains?_

"Just hit me already, Burnscar. I wanna feel it this time."

The girl - Burnscar - shot out a stream of fire at Superman's direction and it hit Crawler in the back. His body burned from the spray and more scaled grew where the flesh charred.

Green Lantern blasted at her with a shot of green light. She disappeared and the Man of Steel felt a wave of heat wash over him.

"Look out!"

Crawler was back on the offensive, running head first into Green Lantern and knocking him down. Red Tornado quickly blew him across the street and turned to deal with Burnscar, only to have his arm ripped off by something made of many metal components. A giant canine figure made from blades, hooks and other metal objects charged Green Lantern.

* * *

When the Flash reached Keystone City, he saw two figures standing before the portal.

A man in a blue spandex and a man in knights armour holding an oddly shaped sword.

The man with the spear spotted Flash first, and the man in blue spandex walked forwards, his hands raised.

"We mean you no harm," he said. "My name is Legend and this is Chevaliar. Are you a hero or villain?"

"Uh, we've got some new people here and they aren't fighting, Terrific. What do I do?"

* * *

By the time Flash made his call, Burnscar and Hookwolf had already fled. Crawler didn't and took a beating because of it.

He was twice as large, with reinforced musculature and scaled covering him from head to toe. A bullet rung out from Vigilante and Crawler's second eyelid blocked the shot. e turned to swipe and Green Lantern made a wall to stop the villain from connecting his swipe before changing it into a dome.

"Come on big guy," he taunted from under the dome Green Lantern made. "Bring it."

Instead of listening to Crawler's taunts, he buzzed into the JLU headquarters. "We've got one contained. We need something to pin him down."

"We'll send someone on the way. Speaking of which, Flash encountered what appears to be the alternate universe's version of heroes."

"Really?" Green Lantern asked.

"I do stress the word 'Appears' GL. We don't know how this world works but this is the first group of people willing to play ball so far."

J'onn J'onzz flew into the scene, taking time to avoid the fires that Burnscar left and both Superman and the Metropolis Fire Department was clearing up.

"Can you do the honours?" The Atom asked.

"I'll scan his mind and put him to sleep," The Martian said.

Green Lantern but his shield down, and Manhunter began to access the Brute's mind.

"I'm getting conflicted memories here," Manhunter said. "Two different lives and... My word..."

"J'onn, I'm not liking that face you're making here," Green Lantern warned.

"So vast... It's so big," Martian Manhunter muttered, his awareness occupied by The Warrior and The Thinker. "It's... Oh dear... That's not good... That's not good at all."

Crawler fell over, unconscious. Just as he did so, Martian Manhunter grabbed his forehead and fell to his knees.

Green Lantern ran to him teammate and propped him up. "You alright?"

"I'm... fine," he insisted. "It's just... Not what I'm used to seeing. Just a strange vision."

* * *

Batman was in his cave, looking at the feed coming from the Gotham Portal. His exploratory team was on the other side.

"It's clearly some sort of laboratory," Wonder Woman stated. "I don't know what was being done here, but there's a lot of prosthetics and dead animals lying about."

"Pretty creepy," Green Arrow cut in before gasping as his helmet cam showed one of the operating tables. "Those poor dogs."

"Those Prosthetics look similar to the figure that came out of Gotham Portal," Batman noted. "I'm thinking that that figure is either a robot or an animal rigged into a suit somehow."

Wonder Woman's Helmet cam cut to the sight of a short woman riding _something_ that looked like a giant lizard made of bone and exposed muscle, and two more men riding similar beasts.

Somehow, even under the dog mask she wore both Wonder Woman and Green Arrow could tell that she was furious.

"Batman, you in? We have a native and she looks hos-"

The screen in the Batcave exploded as a Mannequin dived through it, directly at Batman.

* * *

AN: Yeah, so basically I wanted to do a fakeout at the start about when in the Wormverse I was doing this, but now we have a better clue.


	3. 3 - Confrontations

Both Chevalier and Legend were ported to the JLU space station after the Metropolis situaton was fully contained.

The two heroes from one universe sat directly opposite of the group of heroes from the other.

Superman, Green Lantern, J'onn J'onzz, Flash, Green Arrow and Amanda Waller were seated opposite.

"Hello I'm Superman," the Kyrptonian lent out a hand "If you can't tell, we are the heroes of this dimension."

Legend shook it.

"Legend, leader of the Wardens. I apologize for any wrongdoing that's happened before we arrived."

"We got in a fight with what I assume were three of your villains," Green Lantern stated. "Do the names Crawler, Hookwolf and Burnscar ring a bell?"

Both of the Wardens nodded.

"Yes," Legend replied. "I assume they aren't the only ones?"

"No, There were two more."

"Both of which emerged from two different portals in two different cities," Green Lantern added. "We did catch one, he's currently incapacitated right now."

Legend and Chevalier looked at each other for a moment.

"We understand," Legend said. "We will help you... capture the five known entrants, but I must warn you that these specific villains like to go about in groups of Nine. I fear there may be more of them already here. Though I do ask you for help over on your end."

Chevalier cut in. "It appears some of your villains have made an entry into our worlds. Dragon assumes that It was an attempt to break into both realities from opposite sides which has caused the portals."

"That's unfortunate," Superman added. "We'd like to help, but none of us are sure exactly what's going on on your end."

"Oh," Chevalier crossed his arms in thought.

"Perhaps you could meet the rest of the Wardens?" Legend suggested.

"I don't think Riley or Valkyrie would do well with this," Chevalier replied. "We still haven't made enough Headway with Goblin King at all, either."

"You don't trust them enough," Legend supplied. "Valkyrie can handle herself and only her and Foil can kill Grey Boy if he's her-"

"Did you say 'kill'?" Superman asked, cutting the conversation between the two heroes.

The Wardens looked at the Justice League capes.

"Yes," Chevalier clarified. "We mean to kill the clones that have crossed over into this dimension if we can. This isn't the first time they've come back from the dead, but-"

"We don't do killing," Green Lantern slammed a hand on the desk. "Not now, not ever."

Both of the Wardens gave a look that was a clear mix of curiosity and confusion.

/br

Batman reacted quickly, leaping back as the large metallic hands swiped at him and the Mannequin rolled. After a quick moment to look he re-assessed Wonder

Woman and Green Lantern's thoughts. There was a human in there, set up to be contained in the main body.

The mannequin shot out it's arm on a chain directly at Batman, and he dodged to the left before throwing a batarang at it. The device hit the arm off

trajectory and it crashed into a railing.

The villain still grabbed the railing and pulled, launching himself at Batman. The dark Knight of Gotham shot a batclaw into the roof of his cave and rappelled quickly into the air, over his assailant.

He had given him self a few seconds of relief and as the villain gathered himself he turn on his backup communicator.

"Batman, what's going on?" Wonder Woman asked.

"I'm a little preoccupied," Batman understated. The mannequin decided to stop attacking and walked over to the batputer.

It raised one of its arms and began typing into the computer. W-A-N-E.

Batman frowned at that and watched the villain turn to look directly at him before wagging a finger. Batman pressed a button and then the batputer exploded, knocking the mannequin across the batcave. He quickly dropped down and sprayed as much of the mess of metal and ceramic with a foam agent designed to hold down brutes like Clayface and Crocodile.

"I've got one of the invaders contained, What's going on at your end?"

Wonder Woman scoffed. "We're meeting the world's greatest detective, apparently."

/br

"let me get this off my chest," The Joker said, twirling a straight razor. "I don't like you. You have it too easy."

Jack smiled. "I do agree, however your ideas on insanity are very, very apparent. I almost hate myself for not thinking about them first, you know."

Cherish rolled her eyes and continued watching the scene before her. Two insane killers were having a vague verbal joust while Bonesaw had Harlequin run about like a nurse as she operated on a rather short man. Siberian watched from the sidelines, but she was inches away from killing Harlequin right there and then.

Bonesaw held out a hand. "Scalpel."

"Here!"

She looked back to the real dangers.

"You think you can do better than me, Joker?"

Joker made a few twirls of his knife and looked at Harlequin. "I could."

Jack leaned back in his chair. "Interesting. I can see the merit in your idea, but there's one thing I have over you."

Joker raised an eyebrow.

"All these years and you still haven't won over Batman? I-"

Jack's monologue was cut short as Joker threw the knife and it embedded itself next to the killer's head. He looked at it and twanged the end before smiling.

"Even without him I could beat you," Joker snarled. "Harley! We're going on a road trip!"

"Aww, no fair Mistah J! I was having so much fun with my new friends!"

Joker grabbed her by the arm and began pulling her away from the operating table. Harley tossed the heart in the air and Bonesaw caught it, giving a conspiratorial wink.

"You'll make seven new friends soon enough," Joker explained as they left the warehouse.


	4. 4 - Annoying Everyone

AN: That moment where you mess up a name. Damn you, Harley Quinn!

* * *

The Tinkertech device that created the portal sat in one of the Warden's buildings. It was the second version, a recreation created by both Defiant and Dragon in an attempt to head-off Mitosis' clone army. The young Tinker tried to create an army of good clones, and almost made headway until she got too ambitious and recreated Jack Slash.

Contessa may have killed her for succumbing to both Jack's and the Simurgh's manipulations, but the damage was done and a portal was created for the Nine to escape.

The Wardens were watching from a camera in Legend's mask. Valkyrie, Riley, Defiant, Dragon, Narwhal, Miss Militia and Goblin King sat there with a multitude of other staff members and Dragons Teeth, watching the feed.

"We should go to them," Dragon suggested.

Miss Militia shifted and her gun changed form to a knife which she holstered quickly.

Defiant noticed that, and voiced an objection. "No. They should return. It would be an easy way to truly gauge how the capes and governments of this world act."

"Defiant, you aren't suggesting using Legend and Chevalier as bait?"

The cyborg frowned. "No, I'm suggesting that we don't know how they work."

Dragon paused. "Dinah says that there is a 90% nothing bad will happen if we enter the portal."

Valkyrie sighed and placed a hand on the table. "What about a mutual greeting?"

Narwhal reached over and pressed the communicator before anyone else could react. "Tell them that I'm coming through, and possibly the others."

She got up and walked away.

Riley sighed. "We gonna stop her, or what?"

Dragon began relaying a second message to Legend and Chevalier.

* * *

"We were facing extinction," Chevalier stressed. "We couldn't risk having people like them around. They made things worse, they killed people who helped. The Endbringers were bad enough alone without people like the Simurgh's victims running around and making things worse."

Superman frowned. "You said it already, Mannequin was a victim of circumstance. You could have helped him."

"Nobody had the time," Chevalier whined. "Half of our greatest capes were killers. Moord Nag, Ash Beast, Val- We did what we could."

"As much as I agree with you on the subject Chevalier, we should change the subject before we go in circles. What about prisons?" asked Waller.

Chevalier shrugged. "We had a inescapable one up until Golden Morning."

Legend nodded at he communication he received.

"Looks like at least Narwhal will be coming through. I'm not sure about the rest but- Wait a second. Okay."

"What's happening?"

"Defiant wants some of your heroes to enter our world help with this 'Legion of Doom' thing. You are obviously more knowledgeable about the specifics of their powers and it would be a great aid in receiving your help."

Superman smirked a little. "He doesn't trust us entirely?"

"There's always a sceptic. " Legend quipped.

Batman came up.

"Batman to Justice League. I have one apprehended interdimensional invader with myself, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow. We also have-"

He was interrupted by an insufferably entertained voice.

"Hey Legend, hey Drag- Wait, no. She wouldn't have gone. Chevalier? Yes, hey Chevalier!"

Superman's incredibly detailed vision saw both Legend and Chevalier twitch and J'onn J'onzz felt a mild psychic backlash of pure irritation.

"How the did you get broadcast- Wait, your powers." Batman made a noise of thought.

"Using that encryption ain't gonna work, bubs. And neither is that one."

"I could always-"

"Five-Seven-Zero-King-Zero-Hopeless-Phi-Delta-Seven-Nine-Watergate," Tattletale rattled off. "Wait, how did I get that wrong?"

"The last part is Kryptonite."

There was a seven second pause.

"It's okay, I just muted the communicator while she was registering that. She's just complaining now."

Superman turned to the Wardens and saw Legend's face buried in his hands and Chevalier patting him on the back sympathetically. A woman who was naked if not for the coating of purple plates from head to toe with a similarly coloured horn on her forehead walked out of the Portal and looked around before seeing Legend and Chevalier. She was followed by a large robotic figure, a man with a staff, a hunchback, a young girl holding surgical tools and a woman wielding a hammer and sickle.

"We decided to join you," a female voice from the giant robotic suit said. "We are the Wardens."

* * *

Joker sighed as Killer Frost rapped her fingers on a table. The same table Toyman sat on, playing with a yoyo. Poison Ivy was with Harley Quinn in the next room over.

"So you are saying you want me to join you and a bunch of other crooks on a multidimensional crime spree in a world where there are capes that don't really know how to handle us?"

"That's not exactly the plan, but it's a good enough summery," Joker shrugged.

"Eh, I'm in. Toyman?"

Toyman stopped playing with his yoyo and hopped off the table.

"I think this would be an interesting exercise. I don't really have anything of interest to do as of recent."


End file.
